Smell at Louisiana hotel turns out to be guest storing gas, fire officials say

(NEXSTAR) — Firefighters found two cans of gasoline in a Louisiana hotel room Thursday after someone smelled gas and called 911.

Firefighters traced the odor inside the Residence Inn in Covington, about 40 miles north of New Orleans, to a guest’s room.

“After an investigation it was determined that a guest was storing 2 gas cans in their room,” The St. Tammany Fire District #12 stated in a Facebook post.

It’s just the latest warning from officials in the wake of the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack which prompted panic-buying across the Southeast.

The fire department added in all caps:

“WE URGE EVERYONE TO PRACTICE SAFETY WHEN STORING GASOLINE! PLEASE DO NOT STORE GAS INSIDE, GAS MUST BE STORED IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA AND IN PROPER CONTAINERS.”

Colonial Pipeline announced that full operations were restarting Wednesday, but large numbers of gas stations without fuel. On Thursday, nearly 70% of service stations in North Carolina had no gas.

Experts and government officials blamed the shortages on people hoarding gas, not a scarcity of fuel, and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission implored people lining to buy gas to “not fill plastic bags with gasoline.”

Photos showed a charred Hummer in Florida Wednesday that burst into flames after the driver filled up several gas cans.